


Fly Boy

by matrixrefugee



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-10-20 08:39:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17619101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matrixrefugee/pseuds/matrixrefugee
Summary: During World War II, a group of Allied soldiers stumble across what they think is a dead RAF pilot...





	Fly Boy

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](https://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/profile)[fic_promptly](https://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/)'s [Author's choice, author's choice, an impossible resurrection](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/144301.html?thread=7321517#cmt7321517) Featuring Jack Harkness and the author's sainted Irish grandfather, who drove an Army truck during World War II and was among the second wave of the Normandy landing on D-Day, June 6th, 1944. Little bit late for Veterans' Day, but thanks, Grandfather, wherever you are.

C Company of the 79th Infantry had made their way as far south as Marne-sur-Meuse, trying to catch up to B Company, with a supply convoy that they had missed and needed desperately. Stiegler's arm was on the mend, which meant he could ride shotgun with Mulhare, who had one of the rear trucks.

They made good time till they passed through a small forest and came upon a guy whom even Cap said had gotten himself into worse scrapes than the rest of them: An RAF Mosquito had cracked up and hung in pieces from the treetops.

"Well, lookit here," Cap said, as they had pulled over to examine the wreckage, the lot of them looking up into a shattered oak tree that Jerry's fire had trimmed up horribly, and the limey plane bouncing off it had not helped its appearance. "Look at this poor bastard, got hisself shot to smithereens."

"Better of 'n some of us," Ed Hatch -- better known as Eeyore -- muttered.

"Somebody needs a hug," Cap said, shouldering his rifle. "Hey, Mulhare: y' wanna climb up there an' see if the limey managed to survive kissin' the trees?"

"And maybe see if he got anything we can use," Pete Murchison, better known as "Grab All" asked.

"Hope he died a hero," Mulhare offered hopefully, but cringing at the thought of what he might find. He climbed onto the hood of the truck, then onto the roof of the cab before pulling himself up into the limbs of the tree.

That was when he put a hand on a leg in the crotch of the branches. He emitted a gasp, just as the someone attached to the leg let out a gasp, like a death rattle in reverse. He nearly jolted out of the tree.

"He's alive!" Mulhare called down.

"Is he one piece?" Cap called up.

"No worse for the wear," a cheery male voice with decidedly American accent said. The injured pilot pulled himself up into a roughly sitting posture, perched on the branch.

"I guess that's a yes," Mulhare called down. The flyboy groped one hand about on the trunk, till Mulhare took that hand. "Here, let me steady you there."

"Whoa, holdin' hands already? But we only just met and I don't know your name," the flyboy joked. "Captain Jack Harkness, and who might be the kind soul who climbed up to rescue me from a plane eating tree?"

"Private Leo Mulhare, sir," Mulhare replied.

"Think that branch your standing on will hold us both, or should I stay put till you get down on terra firma?" Captain Harkness asked.

"What're you two *doing* up there?" Cap called up to them.

"Getting Captain Harkness down now: he's just come to," Mulhare replied. "Think you can make it, sir?"

"Well, get 'um down fast, we're burnin' daylight," Cap replied. Mulhare clambered down onto the truck cab, but still put a hand up to assist their British comrade.

"More limber than I look," Captain Harkness said.

"And before Jerry finds us again," Ed moaned, looking around as if expecting Luftwaffe planes any moment then.  
  
_Dedicated to the memory of Leo F. Mulhare, Private First Class, 79th Infantry._  



End file.
